Bhutan pivotal to Indian security
Bhutan may be a small landlocked country high up in the Himalayas but its importance to India may be likened to those of Belgium and Holland to the peace and security of Europe in the last century. Belgium was invaded by the Kaiser’s Germany in 1914, the casus belli of the First World War; Holland was invaded by Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In both instances geography was a determinant of history. With the Tibetan buffer disappearing into the maw of an expansionist China seeking to occupy centre-stage as a global military power, as President Xi Jinping proclaimed at his country’s recent Community Party Congress, India is on notice to respond appropriately with a credible deterrent.
Bhutan, wedged between Chinese-occupied Tibet and India, borders Sikkim on the west and India to the south. In August this year, Indian and Chinese troops were in a standoff at the tri-junction of Tibet, Bhutan and Sikkim. The spur to India’s intervention at Doklam was prompted by Bhutan’s mounting anxiety at China’s augmented military presence on its northern border. It jelled with Indian anxiety about the defence of the narrow neck of territory dividing Bhutan and Sikkim - which leads directly to the Gangetic plain.
India wisely sponsored Bhutan’s membership to the United Nations in 1970, putting to rest the ambiguities of past treaties and confirming beyond any lingering doubt the Bhutan was a sovereign state. Beyond such external considerations, Bhutan, with its ancient cultural and Buddhist links with Tibet, has embraced modernity without the excesses of rampant consumerism. Bhutan’s Monarch voluntarily transferred power to an elected government.. The changeover was as smooth as silk. Bhutan measures its progress through its Gross National, Happiness. With tragic killings in Las Vegas and New York , and terrorism rearing its ugly head in Europe; with the Middle East a cauldron of murder and mayhem, perhaps Bhutan has lessons to offer on its gracious way of life.
In other words, it is a light unto the nations. The four-day visit to India by King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk and
Queen Jetsu Pema Wangchuk of Bhutan was a delightfully happy event. The King engaged in cordial talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Trade, power projects and regional road connectivity were discussed against the backcloth of the Doklan crisis. The parties are realists; they well understand that the present respite in time will give way to renewed pressure from China. Such primordial behaviour is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. The Thirteenth Dalai lama warned his friend Charles Bell long years ago, that a thwarted China invariably returns to its predatory instincts and will mount territorial challenges well into the future.
Politics of spite and hatred
Not in living memory has India witnessed such unremitting spite and hatred between the two major political parties. No external influence can destroy India, but as happened in the past, India has the power to destroy itself. On the basis of the best historical experience a two-party system is widely perceived as a stabilizing force to the smooth functioning of democratic governance. Alas, this has been far from true in India’s recent history. BJP and Congress must share responsibility for this dismal state of affairs. Measures for the liberalization of the economy – privatizing the national carrier Air India and the Indo-US civilian nuclear accord, for example, – met with strenuous opposition from the BJP. In the latter instance, the BJP joined forces with the China oriented Communist Party of India (Marxist ) or CPM, in an attempt to derail the accord. Finally, the unruly conduct of BJP MPs hobbled Parliamentary proceedings.
In Government, the BJP has rightly taken economic reforms to the next level and kept scrupulous faith the provisions of the Indo-US nuclear accord. Allowance for some degree of cynicism in politics is understandable, but when it descends to addiction, it is necessary to sound the alarm: Whither India?
What the BJP did in opposition, Congress is repeating with interest. The party that led India to freedom is today is a discredited, dynastic rump. Party Vice President, heir apparent to the President Sonia Gandhi, is no prime minister in waiting; his road-shows are pure pantomime. He is unelectable, the uncomfortable truth is likely to be rammed home to the party faithful come the next general election in 2019. His rants are exercises in incoherence; he has nothing tangible to offer by way well thought policies, whether on economics, foreign affairs or defence acquisitions and the like. His pompous declarations are best taken with a generous pinch of salt The performance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is far more critical because of his high national standing as a doer rather than vapid dreamer incapable of delivering the goods. Where does one start? With his deficient historical grasp. Mangling the past to serve pettiest party interests of the present, it simply imperil the future.
Sardar Vallabbhai Patel was a giant of his time, his work to integrate the Princely States into the seamless robe that is the Union of India is cast in the purest stone, as recorded faithfully by his principal and trusted aide V.P. Menon. To purloin his historic contribution to modern India as a devoted Congressman close to Mahatma Gandhi and claim him as a BJP
icon is the purest folly. Setting Patel against Jawaharlal Nehru is no less so. It was Gandhi with his broad insight who chose Nehru as India’s first prime minister because of his unifying national appeal. He brought Patel and Nehru together and them promise that they work together after he had departed the scene. Patel willingly accepted his position as deputy
prime minister and home minister without demur. It was Nehru who, warts and all, created the platform for India’s future
development in ever field of human endeavour; and partnering the eminent physicist Homi Bhabha, laid the foundations of India’s progress in science and technology. Both men were driven by a shared vision. One of the attractive features of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s makeup was his generous and catholic approach to past figures, notable among them, Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi.
It was heartening to read on the anniversary of her tragic death on October 31 1984,that Goa Chief Minister and former defence minister Manohar Parrikar paid a warm tribute her memory and especially to her sterling role in the liberation of Bangladesh, the defeat of Pakistan on the battlefield, and thwarting the machinations of Pakistan’s mentors, the United States and China. The BJP leadership could add a cubit to their national stature if they chose to take their cue from Parrikar.”Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom,’ said Edmund Burke two centuries and more ago. Its wisdom endures.
Lessons of the German Reformation
The Protestant Reformation initiated in Germany some 500 years ago took hold across northern, central and much of southern Europe and was the source of a creative force that was to leave an indelible imprint on Western civilization. However, the Reformation started an era of immense religious strife between Protestants and Catholic communities reaching its apotheosis in the Thirty Years War on German soil that laid the country a howling desolation. Eventually, the Peace of Westphalia was reached in 1648, which started a period of seed time and remedy that created the platform an
European revival to unparalleled greatness in all categories of thought and invention - game-changer of global proportions. .
Germany marked the anniversary of the Reformation with a joint prayer of atonement by leaders of the Protestant Lutheran Church and their Roman Catholic compeers for the pain and bloodshed the rival dispensations had inflicted on each other. Theological differences remain, but the former hatred and violence have been purged. Like all living things, religions, too, must have space to grow and develop in accordance with new truths and new social realities. Bigotry reflects insecurity and fear of the future.
The German event should be juxtaposed with one as recent in Malaysia. Zakir Naik, a jihadi preacher of hatred and violence against other faiths in India, was wanted by the Indian authorities to face criminal charges in court; he fled the country for Malaysia, where the government has granted him permanent of residence. Naik has been banned from entry
into Britain. An international news agency reports: ‘Critics see Naik’s presence [in Malasia] as another sign of top-level support for hardline Islam in a country with substantial minorities of Christians, Hindus and Buddhists, and which has long projected a moderate Islamic image.’ Enough said.